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Updated: May 18, 2026

Inoculation Strategies to Infect Plant Roots with Soil-Borne Microorganisms
Published on: March 1, 2022
Evolutionary ecology of plant diseases in natural ecosystems
1Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz 95064, USA. ggilbert@cats.ucsc.edu
Abstract:
Plant pathogens cause mortality and reduce fecundity of individual plants, drive host population dynamics, and affect the structure and composition of natural plant communities. Pathogens are responsible for both numerical changes in host populations and evolutionary changes through selection for resistant genotypes. Linking such ecological and evolutionary dynamics has been the focus of a growing body of literature on the effects of plant diseases in natural ecosystems. A guiding principle is the importance of understanding the spatial and temporal scales at which plants and pathogens interact. This review summarizes the effects of diseases on populations of wild plants, focusing in particular on the mediation of plant competition and succession, the maintenance of plant species diversity, as well as the process of rapid evolutionary changes in host-pathogen symbioses.
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